Resigned Partido Reporma spokesperson Ashley Acedillo during a Lacson-Sotto Meet the Press forum on Feb. 10, 2022. Screengrab from Ping Lacson Youtube channel
MANILA, Philippines — The spokesman of the Partido Reporma, and around 60 Cavite-based chairmen and officers have resigned from their respective posts and left the party in the wake of the resignation from the party of presidential candidate Senator Panfilo Lacson.
“In view of Senator Panfilo ‘Ping’ Lacson’s resignation as chairman of Partido Reporma, and given the fact that I am totally committed to support him in his candidacy for president, I am also tendering my resignation as the party spokesman effectively immediately,” former Magdalo Rep. Ashley Acedillo said in a statement on Thursday.
“I shall continue, henceforth, to support and campaign for Ping Lacson in his campaign for the Presidency as his official spokesman,” he added.
Asked if he will stay as a member of Partido Reporma despite resigning from his position, Acedillo told INQUIRER.net: “I am leaving the party altogether. This is in support of Ping Lacson’s decision to resign as party chair.”
The chairman of the party’s Cavite Chapter, Atty. Rafael Rodriguez, also tendered his resignation from his post together with local party chairmen and officials. Lacson hails from Cavite, which is considered as his bailiwick.
“It is with regret that I, as chairman of Partido Reporma, Cavite Chapter, together with all the district and municipal/city chairmen hereby tender our resignation from our respective posts in the party,” Rodriguez said in a letter to Partido Reporma president former Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez.
“Our collective stand is in line with the decision of our presidential candidate, Sen Ping Lacson, to resign from the party and push through with his presidential aspiration as an independent candidate,” the letter further read.
This, as Rodriguez expressed their continued support for Lacson’s presidential bid.
“Despite this party separation, we shall, however, remain together in our dream of a better Philippines,” he added.
Like Acedillo, Rodriguez also said “we left the party altogether to support” Lacson.
Rodriguez told INQUIRER.net that “about 60 officers and chairmen” of the Partido Reporma’s Cavite Chapter resigned and left the party.
On Thursday, Lacson said he is leaving Partido Reporma after he was informed by Alvarez that party officials in Davao del Norte have decided to endorse another presidential contender.
“Considering that it is at the behest of these top-tier officials that I was recruited as a member and the party’s standard-bearer and thereafter elected as its chairman, I believe it is only decent and proper — consistent with my time-honored uncompromising principles — to make this decision,” Lacson said in a press conference in General Santos City.
